


A Rush Of Blood (To My Head and Heart)

by The_Circus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!John, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Some Backstory, some outside POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Circus/pseuds/The_Circus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's a man trapped in a broken box. He wants to leave. A bullet may have stripped him of his dexterity but never his strength. Or how John Watson learnt to fight a different war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is being updated in drips and drabs as makes sense in my brain. This is John's backstory from Afghanistan and how it affects now. Also how to adjust to life in London when you never really leave the war in your head.  
> Unshamed reference to Coldplay in title.

Underneath the too big jumpers, John Watson is slightly too thin, like he's been very ill. It's hot in the pub, hot enough to merit taking off the jumper and rolling up his sleeves, a welcome change from the February weather outside.

Greg Lestrade watches as the doctor walks back, orange juice in one hand, cane in the other. He doesn't seem to need it, but he does partially tuck his leg under the table when he sits down with his arm.

"Thanks for inviting me again" he says, looking around at the team. He's sitting next to Hopkins, who's looking out at him from the corner of his eye.

"You're welcome mate" Greg says easily. "Practically an honouree member now." He takes another sip of his own pint, relishing the bitter alcohol over his tongue. It's been one of those weeks, not enough to call in Sherlock, obvious as to whom it is, but the evidence is scatty.

John smiles a smile that makes him suddenly quite attractive. It's not enough to banish the last vestiges of illness from his face; bags remain beneath his eyes, but enough goes away to make him look five years younger. "Well I appreciate it" he says easily. "I've been a bit of a hermit, need to get out more." He looks around the pub. "Not quite the wild days of my youth, but it will do."

"Wild days?" Anderson asks.

"Oh yes" John says and his smile slides into something mischievous. "Wild days."

"I'll believe it" Sally says. "I have a cousin who went to Queen Mary, she has stories. It's nice to put a face to the tales of John Watson's madcap plans. Wasn't there something about a mini on a roof?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that." John says, looking the most relaxed Greg has ever seen him. But still on guard. "What was her name?"

"Marianne Donovan. She's a journalist." John's smile turned softer but still wicked.

"I remember her. Tell her hello from me." He takes another drink and the table changes subject.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour later John still hasn't touched alcohol but everyone else has had enough to loosen tongues and for stories to start flowing. John is joining in without regard for personal embarrassment, sharing university stories, Sally chipping when she recognises where it's going.

"And then he said, 'just look up' and we did and there it was."

"Seriously. He actually did that?" John is bright eyed with laughter like everyone else.

"You have yourself one crazy bugger mate" Greg says and it's followed by several "Here Here"s and a "True".

"No, no." John says this with patience and a slight sign of being uncomfortable. "I'm not, we're not together."

Sally flicks her eyebrows, disbelieving. "You know, you said something, the 'bust' weeks back. Freak"

"Sally." John says, tone warning.

"Sherlock asked about dying words and you said…"

"Please, God, let me live." John says quietly, pushing his orange juice away. His eyes are three and a half thousand miles distant.

"Yeah" Anderson says. "What was that about?"

John looks at them all, finishing with Greg. He looks old, soul old. This man, Greg realises, has looked death in the eye more than once and on each time, come out on top.

"I had a fever. Well no, wrong start, sorry." John wets his lips, clenches his left fist on the table. "I was shot, in the shoulder. It was an ambush, and I was part of a convoy. People were down, so I was leaning over one patient in the dust. I leaned back, and stood up a bit and a sniper got me in the front. Body armour didn't stop it. Lodged in my scapula." He takes a drink, face as far away as his eyes. He tells the morbid and enthralling story with his body and face as well as his voice. Greg can feel the dust and blood under his fingertips. He rubs his shoulder in sympathy.

"What happened?" Hopkins asks. He's the rookie, does all the errands.

"I got up and continued" John says. "Collapsed when we were safe. It got infected and I got Malaria. It wasn't nice." Everyone winces, and Grey thinks that that must be one of the largest understatements he's ever heard. "My heart stopped" John says like it's the most simple thing. And it is. A heart is just a muscle. "Twice. Once when they were removing the infected tissue and once after two weeks of high fever." Just a muscle after two weeks of strain and racing as John babbles hallucinations as fever eats at his body and morphine tries to calm his brain. No wonder he looked so ill.

"That's me done. I have to see what the genius has been up to." He finishes his drink and stands, smiling at them all. He walks away, using the cane in the wrong hand instead of putting pressure on the wrong shoulder.

"My God" Anderson says, and raising his glass. "To John Watson. Probably the worst not corpse I've ever seen"

"John Watson" everyone echoes, and drinks.

"Who's round?" Sally asks. "I need another after that. It's almost killed the mood."

"Yours" Greg says, not saying 'It almost killed John Watson'. He leans back, mulling things over in his mind. The System will be working overtime now, as rumours spread. A phone call is necessary. The right person and a file will be on his desk by lunch in two days, information flowing sideways to reach him. Time to find out.

A soldier with a gun. A doctor with a bag and a caring hand. A smiling man with three and a half thousand mile eyes. Greg is a policeman. He like solutions. He has patience and a way of talking to people so you don't realise you're giving the answers. He'll enjoy getting answers from John. The tough ones are always the most fun to crack.


	2. Chapter 2

They are looking at each other over the mats. Greg Lestrade hasn't felt so intimidated since he was in the academy and he's not the one fighting this time. John is dangerous, even if he is only three months out of hospital, one and a half into their acquaintance. Sherlock is opposite John, watching.

"These are the rules" the instructor, who's one of the sergeants in the academy, grinds out. "Pin and count to five. Shake hands."

They shake; John's gun bitten hand in Sherlock's chemical stained one. Greg is already nursing bruises from bouts against Sally and John. Physical training days suck.

They circle each other, like two predators. Connect, step back. A flurry of hits. Step back panting. John moves quicker than a limping man should be able. Grabs Sherlock, twist his hips, the tall man goes over the side and is pinned, John's arm across his neck. A few more pounds of pressure and the detective's throat would be crushed. Sherlock taps the ground thrice and John helps him up.

"You're an awful good fighter for a doctor" Sergeant Patterson says. John takes off his shirt, eyes bright with adrenalin. He goes off to Sherlock and Greg, wiping his face on the material. He's being going the longest out of all of them with the least breaks, suffering through the intimidation of Patterson, a man seven inches taller and sixty pound heavier silently and near passive aggressively. He's the runt of them all, smaller than Sally, so he's being picked on the most.

Greg watches Sherlock drain half a water bottle before passing it to John who finishes it, the plastic crinkling within the vacuum. The room is plain, one of the basements under NSY, concrete walls and florescent strip lighting.

"Are you sure John?" Sherlock asks as Greg tunes back into the conversation between the two mismatched men. He's looking at John's shoulder.

"Oh" Greg says, and sees it for the first time. It's red and white with the suggestion of a cavity where infected flesh was removed.

"It's not like I can feel anything" John grins. "Mostly dead sensory nerves remember. How are you doing?"

"Me?" Sherlock is pulling a face, bemused. He looks like a confused bird of prey. "John, only yesterday you needed a heat pack and one of the painkillers you forbade me from touching to get out of bed."

"And today I'm fighting again. There is always another war to fight."

"Dr Watson" Patterson barks. "If you've finished talking to the pretty boys, join me on the mats." John turns and walks to meet the sergeant in the middle of the mats.

"Five on the Sergeant" Anderson says.

"Five on John" Grey shakes hands.

The bout is longer, each being careful. The Sergeant has seen enough of John's fighting to know how to move around him just, but John is more cautious, learning boundaries fast. Patterson moves fast, and John moves smoothly to counter, blocking blows. His left arm is less able, so Patterson concentrates on that. The doctor steps out of the way, eyes cold and make three short, sharp blows.

Patterson crumples, still on the floor, still conscious and perfectly aware.

"I would be a good fighter" John says, crouching over Patterson, voice smooth and quiet, pitched to carry perfectly, and terrifying. "Because I was in the army for seventeen years and saw active service in combat zones for thirteen of them." His dog tags, previously almost unnoticeable, small circles of metal on a snap chain, glint silver and slither of unexplained gold against his chest. "And any man under my command who was behaving like you have today would be on noon and night patrol for a week. You'd be too tired to cause trouble then." He stood up smoothly, a dangerous contrast to the halting limp the first evening they'd met the man. But even then John Watson had proved himself a man capable of layers. John walks away, toward the cupboard containing hot/cold packs. He snaps a cold one and holds it to his shoulder.

"People always underestimate you." Sherlock looks down at John, impassive as far as Greg could see. John sees something else.

"Aren't you glad" he says, accepting the bandage and wrong handily starting to strap the cold pack to his shoulder. Sherlock impatiently, wordlessly takes it off him and ties it, before handing John a spare T-Shirt from the bag he's brought with him. It's faded and probably only fits him due to the weight lost in illness. St Bart's is printed across the back in peeling green letters.

"It's okay Sherlock" he says, gentling his hands. "I used to do this every day before."

"There you are then" Sherlock says brusquely. "You are no longer alone and have no need to struggle through after waking from nightmares. In the interests of the Work I need you well and rested." John smiles back at Sherlock and some of the rookies behind them snicker. It carries well thanks to the echoing walls of concrete.

Sherlock glares the 'I can kill you with my mind glare' over John's shoulder and Greg watches as the rookies abruptly shut up. He knows he can shut mouths with a glare but he's never been able to get the 'mind frazzle' element that Sherlock can.

"I've been through a lot worse than a couple of badly placed punches." John continues. "Anyway, you Sherlock Holmes, were holding back on me." The doctor pokes the detective in the chest on purpose, not wincing as he moves the left.

"Holding back?" Sherlock takes a step back towards the mats and the twitching form of Patterson as John takes one forward.

"Yes, you, holding back. I've seen you fighting properly, need I remind you of last week, and Boxing and Fencing and that strange Japanese one. If you're not going to give me a challenge…"

"What, Patterson wasn't a challenge?" Anderson jerks his thumb to the pile of muscle that is Patterson, still twitching on the floor. He's still recovering from his go with the instructor.

"Do the words 'Armed Forces' mean anything to you?" Sherlock asks, still backing up to the centre of the mats. "Well they will in thirty seconds."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Sally asks, looking between the two men, who still haven't broken eye contact. Both are hyper aware of their surroundings and…

It's like the street dances they sometimes see in Notting Hill, only far more violent. Caprocia is fluid. This dance between the two men is sharper, with contact. Sherlock is purposely missing John's left side.

"C'mon" John says as they both circle. "The three year old at the clinic yesterday had more fight in her." Sherlock lunges unexpectedly and catches John around the middle. John goes lax and Sherlock is forced to either hold him up of drop him on the bad shoulder.

"That three year old bit you." Sherlock is pulling the bemused raptor expression again, eyebrows pulled together, nose crinkled. John smiles, and it's wolfish.

"Exactly" he says and slips out of Sherlock's grasp straight down, swiping the tall man's legs from under him, pulling his hands at the same time, and in a move that should have been impossible for a man a decade younger, twists to roll backwards, forcing Sherlock over with him and pinning him once more, arm across throat again, grin sharp like flint.

"Are you sure that you were in the RAMC?" Sherlock asks as John helps him to his feet once more.

"Oh yes." John takes off the dog tags around his neck, passes them to Sherlock who examines them, turning the dull silver metal over in his hands, looking at the condition of the plain gold rings next to them. "But" John says, wolf grin never having left his face, simply expanding. "I have rolled with the SAS, commandos, the American Special Forces, black ops, my wife, and." He stopped abruptly, pensive look across his lined face. "Sorry, you're not authorised to know about that week. Anyway, I learned much from all of them."

"I can tell. I'll have bruises. So will the supply money thief."

"Ah, no he won't." They walk off the mats again, Sherlock dropping the tags over John's head as they fall into step easily, despite the stride differences. "I was very careful" John adds. "He's not bruised, just a bit red here and there. He'll be up again in ten minutes." He stops ahead of Sherlock, looks back around. "This was the last thing and I'm dying for a cuppa. Coming?"

Sherlock smiles back at John, but it's not obvious. "Are you making it?"

"I suppose."

Sherlock grabs the bag and follows John. Greg looks at his watch and finds it's ten past four. Training ended ten minutes ago. He makes a note about the supply thief claim, and turns to the showers. He stinks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the third chapter. It's a change of pace, and answers a question raised in the previous chapter

They're running. Away for a change, they're the ones being chased, the smuggler they're after has friends. Or at least people who owe him.

"You said he was small time!" John shouts as they dash through the lunchtime crowds, people jumping out of their way.

"This is small time." Sherlock flashes a grin over his shoulder, and John has to revel for a moment at how fun this is.

"Hah!" John laughs out loud, causing people to look at them even more strangely.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite his stature, John is fast, nearly as fast as Sherlock's long legs (Gangly Goose they used to call him in Harrow, one of the nicer names). He has developed a technique from years of rugby and army training. If he's charging a suspect he hunkers down and powers like going in for a tackle, in situations like this one his stride is long, back up, arms working. Sometimes for the short sharp sprints he runs on his toes like a barefoot runner, fast and light.

They're being chased by a group of three, and they could take them with ease, but bruised knuckles are frowned on at the surgery, and John has work tomorrow and his friendly smile doesn't necessarily make up for them.

"John" Sherlock drags him down a side alley big enough for a small car. Its two hundred metres long and at the end is a fire escape, ladder resting a half story off the ground. "I'm going to throw you" Sherlock tosses over his shoulder and powers ahead.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me" John yells back, seeing the plan unfold before his eyes, like military manoeuvres used (still) to (do). But he puts on the necessary burst of speed running faster than full speed at Sherlock, pacing his strides. One foot in Sherlock's linked hands, push up, Sherlock throws his arms up, John up and John catches the middle of the ladder, metal biting cold into his palms (bruises he'll feel tomorrow), pulls himself up, lets the ladder down to Sherlock. The detective scrambles up, hauls the ladder up as the chasers, one black one skinhead one surprisingly normal, stop, panting at the bottom. The pair steps back against the wall of the widows walk, ducking when a knife clatters off the wall onto the metal floor. John's hand darts out, grabs the knife. It's good quality, a prized possession. His now.

"This way." Sherlock leads as they climb the next level, against the wall like solid shadows. It takes them half an hour to get back to Baker Street; they run for the hell of it across the rooftops and through the backstreets. They stop off the knock on Mrs Hudson, but she'd next door with Mrs Turner, so they leave a note on the door warning her not to open the front door for a few days.

Back in the safety (though that is dubious, here there have been assassins, gangsters and Mycroft) of 221B they collapse giggling on the sofa, coats tossed over John's chair.

"Still better than the most famous of classic blunders?" Sherlock asks and John smiles because the first movie he had made Sherlock watch was the Princess Bride.

"Humm. I don't know" John pretends to think about it and they catch the other's eye and start laughing again. "Tea?" the doctor asks some time later, when the sun is shining through the windows.

"Mmm, please" Sherlock cranes his head to look at John. The tall man is flopped back, head on the central cushion of the sofa, knees and legs dangling over the arm. The doctor rises from his seat in the remaining space on the side near the fire place, grey leather squeaking slightly.

"And I'm heating up the remains of the Indian, I don't care if you have to eat off my plate, you're eating something." Sherlock turns to look at John, framed by the glass dividing doors to the kitchen. His pale eyes narrow, and John looks back, not intimidated.

"Oh very well" Sherlock huffs and flings his legs around to the floor lax-a-daisy, pulling his body upright like a soppy rag. He hears John chucking as the kettle grumbles and the microwave starts to burr. It, Sherlock decides, is a very homey sound, John in the kitchen.

"You said something" he says.

"I say lots of things" John agrees, setting out mugs and a plate and two sets of knives and forks. Spices drift as the curry heats.

"No, at that ridiculous training day before" he waves a hand and John gets what he means. Before Moriarty. "Several weeks back."

"I mostly recall threatening Sergeant Patterson, the instructor."

Sherlock is pleasantly side tracked to the memory of John the soldier crouching over the paralysed Patterson- oh, that sounds pleasant, popping the 'p' slightly. "You said…"

"Mary" John pours water, lets the tea steep as he carries the plate of curry and cutlery over to the coffee table, goes back for the tea. "I mentioned Mary."

"She was your wife." It's not a question.

"Yes." John sits back on the sofa, twists to face Sherlock.

"She died."

"Yes."

"When?"

"Oh four years ago now. March 23rd, 2006. Three days before her birthday. She would have been thirty two." John pauses and passes Sherlock one set of cutlery and the detective starts eating automatically.

"IED?"

"Childbirth." The doctor studiously eats small precise portions to remind himself that he has as long as he wants, doesn't need to be ready to go, to fight, and to stitch at a moment's notice.

"She was a civilian?" Sherlock has the case face, the puzzle face on and is frozen with the fork in mid-air, sauce dripping back onto the shared plate.

"No, she was a 1st-leutenient, near promotion to captain. She was part of the Civilian Liaison Team"

"But that doesn't make sense" Sherlock looks at John with full power eyes. John resigns himself to nights of horror,

_of having to wait, to be held back screaming for his wife by an orderly as other doctors (not him, never him, his wife, not allowed) tried to save their child (a girl, Hana for Mary's mother and the local spelling to honour the place of her conception and birth.) and when that failed tried to stop Mary from bleeding, bleeding, bleeding, and of seeing her pale body cradling a stillborn child; Hana not quite fully there._

"Met her in Sandhurst." John starts, seeing green lawn and proud brick buildings. "She was in my class, because I did my doctorate instead of a three year degree. Our romance was the worst kept secret around." _Soft touches against hard places, sighs and kisses and stuttering 'oh, go-o-o-d's_. "We married when I was twenty seven; she twenty six and they always tried to post us together. It worked." John smiles, a soft thing Sherlock has never seen before, or seen out of the corner of his eye and had no reason for. Despite jumper wearing camouflage, John has never produced that loving and gentle smile before.

John doesn't speak about the four week posting in Cyprus that doubled as a honeymoon or the wedding, both of them in full No 1 dress in the Northumberland church he used to attend Christmas services in. He doesn't need to.

"Then four years later we found she was pregnant. We kept quiet, at Camp Bastion at the time; I was one of the surgeons there." John sighs with three and a half thousand mile eyes again. "She went into labour two and a half months early. No reason, it just happened."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At six and a half months a foetus is fully formed in miniature, heart mind functioning, hearing, nerves. The lungs are the only things that aren't quite perfect.

Mary Moonstar he used to call her, because the moon was far kinder than the sun and sometimes it felt like she created the tides and her hair was that rare shade of silver that was usually only found in a bottle. She wasn't serene by any means, a temper worse than his. Their fights were legendary, their life by no means peaceful (We live in a war zone gulbi) but they were their own kind of happy. 'There go the Watsons' they used to say when they had rare time off to walk around or go for a date at the pizza hut. 'Their own special brand of crazy, but aren't they happy for it.'

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh" says Sherlock quietly. "The child?"

"Hana" John corrects. "Her name was Hana. Stillborn"

"Like Rachel?" It takes a moment for John to correct the dots, but he does.

"Yes," he swallows, needs cold water to drag his memories away from sand and blood. The curry isn't helping because

_he and Mary on leave in Kabul. Daring each other to eat the hottest curries they could find She laughs as he forces himself to swallow something fiery enough to make a seasoned spice eater's eyes burn._

"Like Rachel" he agrees, and gets up, drains one glass straight from the tap, drinks the next more slowly.

"Here." Sherlock is behind him, offering four ice cubes on the palm of his hand, melt water glistening. John wonders what the Himalayan glaciers taste like. He holds out his glass and they slide in.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's three o'clock when Sherlock says "Right I know where they are". By six o'clock, they're in a dockland warehouse, behind the police as they raid it for smuggled goods and counterfeit money. By eight o'clock they've given statements to DCI Gregson and are back in 221B. Sherlock follows John to his room. It's plain, functional and lived in already. It's very… John.

"You have pictures." Again, not a question.

John knew this would happen sooner or later, that one day he would wake up and the monochromatic genius would know him better than he knew himself. He crosses to the dresser, open the top draw, takes out a wedding photo, one of just Mary, grinning at the camera while the vivid sun made her hair a halo. And a sonogram at six months old.

"I've never seen one of these before." Sherlock brushes his fingers over the black and white image. "I didn't realise they were so…wriggly" the detective decides on.

"Babies generally are" John agrees almost laughing.

"Can I borrow this?" Sherlock asks. "You'll get it back in perfect condition, I promise. And the one of Mary too." John doesn't know what to do other than slide them over and tuck the wedding one

_Mary, despite the campaign medals on her chest, and the sharp uniform, hair long and loose, flowers in the silver gold. Laughing, she was always laughing because if we don't laugh, gulbi, we'll cry_

carefully back

_Cheers and a rifle salute and rice stings damn it_

in the draw and closes that chapter of his life for now.

_A bell tolling, a grave for two (how is this, because last week he was pressing hands and his face to her belly as His Child kicked and squirmed) mother and daughter, Mary Watson and Hana Watson, We Will Remember Them. and too short dates and a space for his own name._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the morning he finds his pictures laid out on the coffee table and two copies tucked behind the detritus (knife, skull, other strange strange things and a candle) on the mantel piece. Sherlock is flopped over the sofa, so John covers him with the Shock Blanket, puts the kettle on and toast and returns the originals to the draw. They would like each other, John decides. Mary and Sherlock, his wife and his best friend. Fate has never been kind enough to let him have both at once, but he's grateful he's has (had) them at all.


	4. Chapter 4

It's a drugs bust. Again. This is the third one in the near ten months Johns has lived with the addictive genius. He doesn't like them. The busts usually come just when he has managed to get a semblance of order in the common areas. The busts mess everything up, leaving the flat in a worst state than it was found in.

He shows his displeasure in the most British way that he can think of; he refuses to make them tea. Each time the 'volunteers' of NSY descend on 221B he puts the kettle on, becomes selectively deaf to requests and makes tea for Sherlock and himself only. Greg usually shows a flicker of disappointment and John always feels a perverse sense of Hah! That's what you get for invading our home!

Sherlock is switching between sulking on the sofa and whirling around, trying to stop them for unbalancing the delicately stacked pile of papers on the table. Glass wear in the kitchen is being clattered and poked at, but most of the chemistry equipment is in the cupboards (with the exception of the distillery and the biuret, they're in the corner by the fridge) today, neatly stacked next to the two four packs of glasses John bought cheaply from Tesco's after Sherlock broke half of theirs.

The bookshelves are being shoved around, the buffalo having its nose looked up and the small bathroom has three different officers and equipment in a space designed for two at the maximum. All of Sherlock's work over the past few days, organising his notes have been ruined. He looks over to the kitchen where John is offering various canisters and containers for inspection. He is making the tea properly, with leaves, mostly to annoy Lestrade who hasn't had a decent cup of caffeine since his shift started fifteen hours ago. The kettle clicks. Sherlock is aware of many things in the next few minutes.

Lestrade (bags under eyes, youngest has a fever, wife out –affair, shirt his spare one kept in the lock room), the fireplace, (ash and soot all over the hearth, John won't be pleased), the rug (turned back), the sofa (pushed aside, orange shock blanket sprawling in an impression of him). The winces in the kitchen (officers finding things not 'ordinary'- that was right, he had a series of detailed anatomical drawings stuck to the walls and door. He'd been practicing drawing from memory and John had joined in and had been better at some of them (muscle and bone structure and positioning of organs and the body in general, in fact John was mostly responsible for the full size drawing of a man that should have been in Grey's Anatomy spread over the kitchen table) where he had been good at the details of the brain and eye and the positioning of nerves (okay, so the full size man, with veins and arteries in colour that was causing most of the officers to look away quickly, had been a joint effort, yesterday evening happily wasted.). Also the two vials of extra cellular fluid (one diabetic, one not) and the two bags of blood (John's insistence, one of each of theirs) and yes, the ears. But there are also the tomatoes, which are, in his opinion, worse.

There are officers in his bedroom, going through the armoire, and the bureau and flipping the mattress in John's room more respectfully than they are in his and Sherlock hopes that, yes, there is the faint outline of John's gun (thank god for jumpers) against the small of his back, almost unnoticeable. John is letting the tea steep, forcing the officers to move around him or ask him to move. Sherlock looks up and yes, there is the slight smirk, the same sense of perverse enjoyment. John pours milk as Anderson, that particularly annoying parasite, Anderson who is standing by the bookshelves (that were full before John moved here with his duffle bag and one suitcase and two boxes kept in storage from his sister of paper work and many more of books of all types, the majority of which are kept on two shelves that line the walls at shoulder height in John's room ) that have books piled on the floor beside them, and paper and thin pamphlets are shoved horizontal on top of John's medical textbooks and subscription journals (BMJ, Lancet), Anderson says "Hey Sally, look at this." His voice is higher and more nasal than usual. John would diagnose a sinus infection. He's flicking at the photographs pinned to the edge of the mantel to be deliberately in John's line of sight when he sits down. John had made very good curry the night they first appeared there.

Sally strides over (heels- impractical- click, click, click on hard wood floors and then softer over the folded back rug).

"Hah" she says, looking at the pictures. "What do you need a photo of a pretty woman for?" Anderson pulls at the photograph carelessly. It tears, the left side of the photo, the right of Mary's face going fuzzy with the ripped paper.

"And this." Anderson continues, tugging the sonogram just as carelessly from the mantel, the corner coming off. "What did you do to the baby? Eat it?"

"No" Sherlock says slowly, something heavy and roiling settling in his stomach. They'd ruined the copies he'd made especially for John who still wasn't sure about his right to put his past out like that. To try and help make this his home. (Sherlock is aware that part of John still thinks that shifting sands and dusty green highlands are his home, a place where he can speak a different language Sherlock is only just starting to understand.) Just torn the pictures.

There is a thump clatter smash from behind him and he knows what he is going to see before he turns around.

John is in the sliding door way. He is frozen as statue in hated, disbelieving horror, like if he stays still, this will not have happened. At his feet are two dropped mugs (Sherlock's, the indigo purple he won't admit is his favourite colour, but John must know, why else would he have bought it for him? The handle is snapped off. John's mug, the crest cracked in two, shattered into five, six large pieces and many small ones, In Arduis on one piece, Fidelis on another, In Adversity/Faithful), tea spreading like beige blood, like grief. John meets Sherlock's eyes. He sees Arduis/nothing.

"Take my card" he says in the aching silence. He can offer no support now, not with everything so close on his brain, ticking over things to do to the moron. He can only offer the practicalities of escape. John takes it, swiping the debit card from Sherlock's wallet and making short sharp moves as he practically runs out the door (so there are some things John will run from rather than face). Once on the street he really does run, powering away out of window view. Sherlock knows he will stop in around a minute and get a taxi. He knows where to.

Lestrade looks from the broken mugs to Sherlock to the mugs again, confused. Sherlock is not wearing his coat. He is however wearing a dressing gown, the red one. It whirls behind him as he turns, sharp, and his face raptor like.

"You idiots" he hisses, and then thinks no, not the right word. It's generalised, and this has been... "You callous, stupid wastes of space. And you Sally Donovan, I expected better of you." His words and face are a direct contrast to his hands, gentle as he reclaims the torn photographs. "Anderson, how dare you, you blind man, you are a bigger waste of atoms than I previously thought." He draws back suddenly, going from inches from the man's face to several feet away. "And you accuse me of psychopathy."

"Sorry, what Sherlock, it's a couple of photographs." Lestrade looks over to where Sherlock has laid them down neatly. "She's a pretty woman, I'll give you that."

"They're not mine" Sherlock growls and rattles around in draws, shoving people out of the way. He comes up with sell-o-tape and reverses back to the table between the windows. "They're John's." Sherlock is impatient, voice twisting. "Do you know how hard I've had to work to convince him he has a home here, every night try and drag the little bits of his head that were stuck in deserts and mountains back here?"

"John, stuck where?"

"Afghanistan." Sherlock practically flails his arms. They are all so slow, especially when now, he cannot afford to be. Isn't it obvious? "God, more than half his heart was there."

"I thought he was in love with you" Lestrade protests, scrubbing his hand over his hair and keeping moving, pacing in circles to try for understanding.

Sherlock freezes. "In love with me? Not in the way you're thinking. No, he's still desperately in love with his wife."

"His wife?" Lestrade and Donovan speak at the same time. The latter has one eyebrow raised, curious, the former's eyebrows have shot straight up, and is leaning forward slightly, as if to listen better.

"Had. John had a wife. Mary. She died in 2006."

"Died?"

"Yes."

"And that's her?" Lestrade looks at the stuck back together photograph.

"Yes." Sherlock rubs an uncharacteristic hand across his eyes.

"So she died in Afghanistan" Anderson says. "What? I pay attention."

"How? IED?" Lestrade feels and awful suspicion settling in his mind like cold custard, rubbery and sticky. Sherlock scoffs, recognising his initial thoughts. Carefully, he scoops up the two pictures.

"No" he says, hating and relishing the attention. "In childbirth. Now out, all of you. And tidy up as you go." He strides to the door, grabs his own greatcoat and John's sniper jacket, before doubling back for the aluminium cane dusty in the corner. The door slams behind him.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm following him. Tidy up and get out. You two." Lestrade points at Donovan and Anderson. "With me." Once outside he gets out his mobile and scrolls down to the number that used to function as 'Sherlock Holmes emergency'.

"Detective Inspector" the smooth voice at the other end says.

"I need the location of the grave of John's wife and child." He doesn't have time for games.

"Oh dear. Has someone done something very stupid?" The voice is condescending.

"Yes" he says shortly. "And I'm trying to fix it."

"The road to hell Gregory." Lestrade has never hated Mycroft Holmes more than he does now. A black car draws up in front of them. They get in and Mycroft speaks one more time from the phone. "The car is at my brother's disposal once you reach your destination. He did take Doctor Watson's cane, did he not?"

"Yes" Lestrade is forced to say as London streams by out the windows.

It takes thirty minutes to get to the cemetery and they arrive just after Sherlock. The man is at the flower stand outside, and Lestrade watches as he buys two unfurling roses, one red one pink. Sherlock knows where he is going and knows that he is being tailed by the trio of officers. Lestrade knows that Sherlock knows. Sherlock knows that Lestrade knows that Sherlock knows that Lestrade knows that Sherlock knows. He stops his brain before it gets any more ridiculous. They pause twenty or so metres away from Sherlock, Donovan and Anderson behind him. They watch.

Sherlock looks overdramatic in the graveyard, great coat and two roses in hand. The image is somewhat spoiled by the cane and jacket tucked under his arm. John is sitting on the ground, back to a headstone, head back to expose his neck, ignoring the starting rain. He's in just a t-shirt, an old thing with the insignia of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers on the back and front.

The trio of police can't hear what the strange pair of saying, and Lestrade thinks that's right. They have to show some respect. They can see though. Sherlock stands in front of John and waits. Two minutes later John focuses on him, and Sherlock helps him to stand, giving first the cane and then the jacket. John leans on the former gratefully and puts on the latter, stopping his shivering just a bit. They move around to the front of the stone and Sherlock offers four things: The two roses and the two photos from the flat. Instead of John though, it's Sherlock who kneels down to place them and then reaches out to put a hand on the head stone.

"Wow" Anderson says, behind and to his left. "Looks like Holmes has a heart after all."

"Dr Watson is a good bloke. Crazy, but good" Sally agrees. Lestrade doesn't think he's ever seen her so small and quiet. Sally has made her way in a white man's world by hard work and few mistakes. She, like himself, is realising that they invaded a man's home and broken his property. He enabled this. As funny as the idea of drugs bust bingo was, it's not a good reason. He could have asked for the paper work, not barged in searching for it.

John and Sherlock leave after a time, some of it spent in silence, some of it talking softly.

The gravestone when they get to it half a minute later is plain and inexpensive; gold letters carved into grey granite.

1st Lieutenant Mary Watson

Wife, Soldier, Mother

26th March 1975-23rd March 2006

Hana Watson

Daughter

23rd March 2006

We Will Remember Them.

"That explains a bit" Anderson says. "Why would she still be upset? Look at the dates. He knew what it was like."

The ground is covered in sparkly chips of gravel and the edge is the same grey granite as the headstone.

"There's a space on the stone" Donovan points out. "And this plot is too big for just a woman and baby."

"It's for John." Lestrade reviews everything he knows about the man and finds himself sure. "The space is for John." The roses are placed in the middle of the stones, in front of the empty pot where flowers are supposed to go. The two repaired pictures, the happy woman and the wriggling in womb child are propped up on the headstone, sell-o-taped together.

"You will write letters." He finds himself saying, "of apology. This won't go on your records, because none of this is official. But count yourselves warned. You're both damn good at your jobs. Get over yourselves." He steps forward, lays a hand on the granite stone and walks around and out, to the main road for a taxi.


End file.
